Washington military planners decided to
remove Bashar al-Assad from power using seasoned jihadist fighters
because the Syrian president refused to back the Qatari project to build
a gas pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, radio
host, attorney and nephew of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted.

The $10 billion pipeline project first surfaced in 2000. Nine years
later Bashar al-Assad announced that he would not support the initiative
that would have granted Qatar direct access to European energy markets
via terminals in Turkey.

Soon after that “the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria,” Kennedy wrote
for Politico. The CIA went ahead with this plan months before the Arab
Spring uprising in Syria took place, which clearly indicates that the
Syrian conflict is in fact a violent foreign-sponsored insurgency aimed
at bringing a pipeline project to life, not a civil war for greater
rights or representation.

Moreover,
“US intelligence planners knew from the outset that their pipeline
proxies were radical jihadists who would probably carve themselves a
brand new Islamic caliphate from the Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq,”
Kennedy observed.

FILE – In this photo taken Monday, June
23, 2014, fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered
Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern
city of Mosul, Iraq

This is what happened when Daesh fighters launched a blitz offensive on the second largest Iraqi city of Mosul from their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa
in June 2014. They later declared an Islamic caliphate on the
territories under Daesh control, shocking the world with their
brutality, financial resources and military capabilities.

“Not
coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied by the Islamic State
exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline,” the expert
added.

If completed, the project would have had major geopolitical
implications. Ankara would have profited from “rich transit fees.” The
project would have also given “the Sunni kingdoms of the Persian Gulf
decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar,
America’s closest ally in the Arab world,” the expert noted.

In addition, the pipeline would have also strengthened Saudi Arabia
by giving the oil kingdom additional leverage against Iran, whom Riyadh
sees as its archenemy.

About Che Guevara

Reporting for publications like Foreign Policy, TIME, World Affairs Journal, and Political Science Monitor, Sotloff called himself on Twitter a "stand-up philosopher from E.S" and was a big E.S Heat fan.